by Kim Goldberg – April 19, 2014

Where Can We Live?

Watch the 7-minute trailer here:

Where Can We Live is a 2011 documentary film by director Hélène Aastrup-Samuels tracing the lives of two unrelated Swedish women and their young families as each woman, in her own way, struggles to find peace and safety from the toxicity of wireless radiation. Lisa and Linn are electrosensitive, and each has been forced to abandon the life she knew (including job, home, education, and city) in order to escape the nearly ubiquitous presence of wireless devices.

The director and her crew followed each woman for three years to produce a film that reveals both the logistical and psychological price paid by those suffering from this growing environmental illness. The final result is a narrative work that switches back and forth between the two unfolding sagas throughout the course of the 42-minute film.

The film opens with Lisa and her young children at their small off-grid cottage in the Swedish countryside. For many of us, this would be an idyllic existence. But when one is required to live this way—far from the amenities of the city, and with no electricity—it can also be confining. For Lisa, it meant the end of her academic studies and her ability to have a paying job, relying instead on her husband to support them all.

Within minutes, the film cuts away to Linn’s story, which begins in Stockholm where she is a computer engineer. By the end of the film, after several moves and job changes, Linn is also ensconced in a country home with minimal exposure to electromagnetic radiation. She is still a computer engineer, but she is now enclosed in a specially designed workplace with much shielding.

Lisa found peace from electro-pollution by moving to an off-grid cottage in the Swedish countryside with her family. (Photo courtesy of Eira Film)

The director’s cinéma vérité style of filmmaking, in which the camera follows each woman in her daily activities and lets each woman speak directly to the camera about the impact of electrosensitivity of her life, ends up supplying us with a startlingly frank portrait of the full scope of electrosensitivity. (And, although this may not have been the director’s intention, the film is also an excellent travelogue for life in the Swedish countryside. I was ready to pack my bags by the end of the film.)

A highlight of the film is the “house call” from Swedish electrosensitivity physician Dr. Ulrika Åberg, who has seen more than 700 electrosensitive patients over 15 years of treating this problem. Recognizing that electrosensitive people are often unable to travel or return to a city, she goes to them when necessary. We meet her when she arrives by bus to visit Lisa in the countryside.

Dr. Åberg describes Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity as “a barrel overflowing”. On the bottom, she says, “we have metal fillings and other toxins from pesticides and other things.” Add to that, the ever-increasing radiation in our daily lives, plus the emotional and psychological and financial stress that results when a person can no longer function as before, and it is a recipe for total health collapse.

Garden cress is a fast growing and edible herb that will sprout in just a small amount of slightly alkaline water. But there is one exception to that rule, and is has scientists scratching their heads.

A group of 5 girls have carried out a science experiment at Hjallerup School in North Jutland, Denmark that saw garden cress seeds placed in 12 tubs and split into two batches. Both batches were placed in different rooms that remained the same temperature, and were given the same amount of water and sunlight over the course of 12 days.

You’d expect both batches of 6 tubs to grow equally well, but one set didn’t even germinate. The reason? They were placed next to two routers. Although it’s unclear exactly why this happened, it is thought that the radiation produced by the routers is what stopped the seeds germinating.

The girls’ experiment was geared towards testing the potential impact of phone radiation on surrounding objects. They didn’t have phones to use though, so decided the routers were a good alternative. The experiment has certainly caught the interest of the international science community and is set to be repeated in a more controlled environment. One of the first controlled experiments will be carried out by Professor Olle Johanssonfrom the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Hopefully it will shed more light on why this is happening…

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re·fu·gi·um—An area that has escaped changes occurring elsewhere, thereby providing suitable habitat in which organisms can survive through a period of unfavorable conditions. [from Latin refugium, from refugere to flee away, from re- + fugere to escape]

Kim Goldberg is an award-winning writer in Nanaimo, British Columbia. She is the author of six books and more than 2,000 articles. Kim holds a degree in Biology from University of Oregon and is an avid birdwatcher and nature lover. Read more about Kim here. Email: goldberg@ncf.ca